If you’re interested

Last Monday I was working, waiting for the clock to read 9:00. It was around 8:30 or so when a girl comes in, college student, around my age: blond hair, slight figure, long skirt, great smile. She’s been in the store at least a couple times before, I remember. She comes to my counter with her bottle, we make small talk, she pays and she leaves.

A couple minutes later, she comes back in and goes to the schnapps section and looks around. I’m helping a couple other people at my register. As soon as I’m done with them, she walks up to my counter, mumbles something unintellgible save “if you’re interested” right at the end, and hands me a torn index card with her name and phone number on it and leaves before I think of asking her what she said. Truthfully, there was plenty of time for me to ask, but I certainly wasn’t expecting her to give her number and that caught me completely off guard.

Some goofy-looking kid being helped at the other register proceeds to congratulate me on getting her number by offering a high-five. I don’t want to leave this guy hanging because he’s a regular customer, and one of the nicer ones. And I didn’t really get her number, she offered it to me.

I call her a couple days later in the afternoon, I get her voicemail and leave one. I was pretty sure she’d call back soon. The day comes and goes with no word from her. OK, she’ll call back tomorrow, I think. Besides, she gave her number to me, she must want to talk to me, for some undeterminable reason because either she can’t speak clearly or my hearing sucks. I should really turn the music down when I’m driving.

The next day I’m at work and my cell phone is quiet for the duration of my shift. I get home at night, bored with nothing to do. I decide to call again.

Ringing. Ringing. “Hi, this is ____, leave a voicemail.” I don’t leave a voicemail. I’m sure she’ll call me back this weekend. She probably has exams. I think she said she was graduating soon, so she has that to deal with too. Whatever.

The weekend comes. Ricky has a party at the house and all his friends were over. It was a great time (I had to work open-close the following day, which is why I didn’t tell any of my friends to come. Sorry.) Ricky is the first one to pass out, 11pm. Several hours before anyone else did. Saturday is a rough day at work, but I manage. No phone call.

Sunday night I am packing for my short excursion to Blacksburg to hunt for places to live this fall. I’m thinking about the situation with this girl and the mystery preface. I’m wondering what she said. It had been bugging me all week, but at this point I’m beginning to think that whatever she said must have been terribly important, and I only caught the “if you’re interested” at the end.

What could she have said? The possibilities are endless. I thought of some of them:

-”Hey, I think, if you’re not doing anything, we should get together sometime. Call me if you’re interested.

-”Whatever you do, don’t ever call this number. Ever. I fucking mean it, that is, if you’re interested.

-”Oh God, you have to help me. I’m being kidnapped. I need you to take my cell phone number to the police so they can track it. I really need you to do this, it would save my life, if you’re interested.”

-”Call this number if you want a brand new state-of-the-art George Foreman grill, for only $19.99! Call now, and I’ll even throw in a second George Foreman grill, ABSOLUTELY FREE! If you’re interested.”

-”My roommate bet me $5 that I wouldn’t give my number to the weird, creepy liquor store clerk. Oh boy, am I going to prove her wrong! I probably won’t answer my phone, but I guess you can call, if you’re interested.”

I decide to call her one last time. Still no answer, and it goes to her voicemail. Now, at this point I don’t care whether she wanted to talk to me or meet me or whatever; if she does, great. If not, that’s cool too. I just really wanted to know what she said.

I left a voicemail saying pretty much that. She can call me or text me back if she wants, even if just to tell me what she said, but either way is fine.

It is now Wednesday night, and she hasn’t called, and I don’t believe she shall. She probably thinks I’m some deranged, psycho, stalker-type person. I’d be surprised if I saw her at the store again. I can only conclude that she’s either incredibly shy, she invited me to a party that night that I missed out on, or she really did win 5 bucks from a friend.

Either that, or I missed out on a damn good deal for a couple Foreman grills.